Tag: Property Valuation

  • We Don’t Decide With Our Brains.

    We Don’t Decide With Our Brains.

    We Decide With Our Guts and Hire Our Brains as Lawyers.

    There’s a genre of video that shows up online every election cycle.

    Someone reads a quote to a stranger on the street. Says a politician on the other side said it. The stranger nods along, agrees with every word, maybe adds their own commentary about how reasonable it sounds.

    Then the interviewer reveals who actually said it.

    The person on camera backpedals. Gets flustered. Sometimes gets mad.

    We watch that and think: what a rube. Didn’t even evaluate the idea on its own merits. Just heard a name and reacted.

    Here’s the part nobody likes hearing. That’s not a them problem. Everyone is prone to this sort of thing.

    We decide with emotion first. Then we go looking for the reasons. Most of the time we don’t even notice we did it in that order, because the reasons show up so fast it feels like they came first.

    Car salesmen have known this forever. Their whole job is getting you to want the car before you’ve priced it out and started the paperwork. Once you want it, you’ll find your own reasons the payment makes sense. Even though it’s more than you said you wanted to spend just a little earlier.

    It’s not just dealing with salesmen. It’s most of what moves us, all day, every day, if we’re not paying attention.

    I can tell you it’s smart to have a real handle on your finances. I can tell you that if you own land or commercial property, it makes sense to know roughly what it’s worth, what’s selling around it, what the county or the highway department is planning nearby. Not because you’re doing anything about it. Just because things change, sometimes fast, and it’s better to know than not know.

    You’ll agree with all of that. Nobody argues with it.

    And most people still won’t do anything about it.

    Not because it’s hard. Because of what happens in your chest the moment you think about picking up the phone.

    If an agent calls about your property, most people’s first thought isn’t “great, information.” It’s a mental preview of getting talked into something. Buzzwords. Pressure. A conversation that ends somewhere you didn’t want to go.

    Or it’s the family part. Land that’s been sitting in the name a long time carries more than a market value. Selling it, or even looking like you might, comes with a conversation you’re not ready to have with your brother or your kids.

    I know because that’s the same thing that runs through my head when it’s my property.

    None of that has to be true here.

    Looking isn’t selling. Nobody has to know you looked. You’re not committing to a conversation with your family, a listing agreement, or anything else. You’re just getting the numbers so you’re not guessing later, when guessing costs more.

    Give yourself permission to look. That’s smart to do, and you don’t have to go further.



    PPS- If you’re not ready for a Reality Check but you liked this one, you can sign up below and get these posts in your inbox.

    Register to Receive Posts Via Email!

    By submitting, I understand I will receive marketing emails and blog posts from Mike Browning Realty and/or associated companies. Unsubscribe at any time.

  • The World As It Is

    The World As It Is

    Some people spend a lot of energy being offended by things that were never about them.

    Someone says something careless. Or acts a certain way in public, or online, or at work. And someone else sees it and decides it was aimed at them personally. Now there’s a problem to solve. A wrong to correct. A wound that needs acknowledging.

    A lot of times the other person wasn’t thinking about them at all.

    People are self-absorbed, although usually in ordinary, harmless ways. They’re worried about their own day, their own bills, their own kid’s homework. The comment that landed wrong, the look that seemed pointed, the rule that felt unfair. Most of it is just noise other people are making while they live their own lives. It only becomes about you if you decide it is.

    Obviously I’m not saying bad behavior doesn’t exist. People are rude and small and unfair plenty. As the saying goes, some people are just jerks.

    But there’s a difference between noticing things and letting those things ruin your day, or organizing your life around the idea that the world should have treated you a certain way and now owes you something for not doing it.

    That’s exhausting. And it doesn’t change anything. Whatever happened still happened. All that’s changed is you’ve spent the afternoon carrying it around.

    The people who do best are the ones who deal with the world as it actually behaves instead of how they wish it did. And move forward accordingly. That doesn’t mean you can’t be disappointed at times, but it happens to everyone.

    This is one of those concepts you see everywhere once you notice it for the first time.

    A seller looks at their property and decides what they want it to be worth. Based on what they put into it, what they need out of it, what the neighbor claimed his sold for at the mailbox. None of that is the market. The market doesn’t know what you need and doesn’t owe you a number.

    You can list at an unrealistic number you wish were true, but I don’t recommend it. Buyers will simply ignore you, politely or not, and the property sits.

    You can price it at what the market will actually pay, today, with the buyers who actually exist, and move forward. Or you can wait. And maybe later things will be more to your liking.

    Both are real choices. Waiting for the market to come around to your number may be the right call. Nobody knows the future, but in north Texas land has tended to rise over time. If you’re not in a hurry, or don’t need to sell, it might be the best choice.

    But the market isn’t being unfair to you for not acting like you wish it would. It isn’t being anything. It’s just being a market.

    PPS- If you’re not ready for a Reality Check but enjoy reading about land, markets, and negotiation, you can sign up below and get these posts in your inbox.

  • The Gas Price People

    The Gas Price People

    Since I’m out looking at land all over DFW, I drive more miles than most people do in a month. And I don’t drive a Prius, I drive a pickup. Not one of the giant, jacked-up models, but I’m still not winning any awards for conservation.

    So if anyone should be paying attention to gas prices it should be me. But I don’t. But that doesn’t prevent others from telling me about the latest moves.

    You know the type. They watch the price board every time they pass a station. They’ll drive ten miles out of their way to save three cents a gallon. Burn more gas than the savings they get. They text their spouse: “Buc-ee’s in Melissa is at $3.09 right now.” The gas price conversation comes up at dinner like they’re tracking a stock.

    But think about it. Say prices jump twenty cents a gallon. My truck takes about 26 gallons. That’s five dollars more per fill up. Five bucks. The mental energy some people spend tracking that number, recalculating, stressing, and comparing costs more than five dollars. Probably a lot more.

    As a wise man once said: he who knows the price of everything knows the value of nothing.

    And that’s the real problem. When you’re focused on what something costs, you stop thinking about what it’s worth.

    Landowners do this too.

    Not with gas prices. With phone calls.

    They’ve been sitting on a piece of land, could be a hundred acres, could be forty, and every so often they wonder what it’s worth. What’s been selling nearby. Whether the market shifted. Whether now’s the time or not.

    But they don’t do anything about it.

    They’ve decided that the cost of checking is too high. Not in money. Something worse: the pressure. The pitch. The agent who’s going to spend forty-five minutes making it real estate conversation instead of land conversation, then follow up every two weeks until they finally block the number.

    So they wait. And while they’re waiting, they’re not getting the information they’d need to make a good decision when the time comes.

    That’s the real cost. And it’s not five dollars.

    Here’s what I’d ask you to think about.

    What if you knew ahead of time that the pressure thing wasn’t going to happen? If I promised you the conversation was just going to be information, that I wasn’t going to push, that you reach out and end up with a clearer picture and nothing more, would it still make sense to wait?

    Of course anyone can promise no pressure. But don’t take my word for it, hear it from people who actually got a Land Reality Check:

    — Mary G., Frisco

    — Lisa H., McKinney

    — Barbara K., Denison

    The value of knowing what your land is worth doesn’t go away because you’re not planning to sell today. If anything it goes up, because the people who make good decisions on land almost always understood the market before they needed to.

    The cost you’re worried about? It doesn’t exist here.


    PPS-Not ready for that yet? You can sign up below and just read. Land, markets, negotiation. No pitch.

    Register to Receive Posts Via Email!

    By submitting, I understand I will receive marketing emails and blog posts from Mike Browning Realty and/or associated companies. Unsubscribe at any time.

  • It’s Not Free To Try

    It’s Not Free To Try

    One thing that makes land different from houses is that having it sit on the market a little while usually doesn’t damage it the same way.

    A house sitting unsold starts raising questions pretty quickly.

    Land is slower by nature.

    So after a Land Reality Check, sometimes the conversation becomes:

    “Okay, if you think this is worth around $8,500 an acre, why don’t we just throw it out there at $14,000 and see what happens?”

    And within reason, that’s not necessarily crazy.

    If somebody is willing to sell around market value, but wants to push a little first just to make sure we’re not leaving money on the table, fine. I understand that completely.

    You’ve probably noticed if you’ve read any of my Land Reality Checks that I tend to lean conservative anyway.

    I’d rather be slightly conservative than explain later why fairy tales didn’t happen.

    But there’s another side to this too.

    If you’re selling a small residential lot, it usually doesn’t take much more than a yard sign and an MLS listing. Which isn’t free, but usually doesn’t involve substantial upfront expense either.

    If somebody wants to throw one of those out there at an unrealistic number “just to see,” I might play along.

    Maybe.

    Larger signs.
    Drone photography.
    Aerials.
    Professional brochures.
    Landing pages.
    Targeted marketing.
    Industry websites.
    Paid Google ads sometimes.
    Mailers sometimes.

    It adds up faster than people think.

    A decent custom sign can easily run $500 to $1,000 depending on what’s needed. Drone photography might be another few hundred. Professionally printed brochures are expensive if you want them done correctly.

    And that’s before getting into the less visible costs, the platforms, memberships, advertising accounts, and all the little things that make the marketing possible in the first place.

    Depending on the tract, it’s not unusual for me to spend $1,500 to $2,000 or more getting a property positioned before anything even happens.

    That doesn’t mean every listing sells.

    Markets change.

    Sometimes sellers change their minds. Sometimes buyers disappear. Sometimes a property just sits there longer than expected.

    That’s business.

    But there still has to be some reasonable overlap between where a seller is realistically willing to sell and where the market is realistically willing to buy.

    Otherwise everybody is mostly participating in a very expensive form of wishful thinking.



    PPS – If you’re not ready for a Reality Check but enjoy thinking about land, markets, negotiation, and how this business actually works, you can sign up below and get these posts in your inbox.

    Register to Receive Posts Via Email!

    By submitting, I understand I will receive marketing emails and blog posts from Mike Browning Realty and/or associated companies. Unsubscribe at any time.

  • Don’t Get Your Feelings Hurt

    Don’t Get Your Feelings Hurt

    When people ask for a Land Reality Check, sometimes they’re disappointed in what I tell them.

    That’s just part of it.

    A lot of times they heard about some property up the road that sold for X, so naturally the question becomes, “Why are you telling me mine is worth Y?”

    The other property may have had water or sewer. Maybe the frontage was better. Maybe the topo worked better. Maybe more of it was usable. Sometimes one side of the road is simply more desirable than the other. There are a hundred little things that can move value around.

    But the bigger thing to understand is the approach I take when I do these.

    I generally don’t ask ahead of time what your motivation is.

    Whether you want to sell immediately, inherited the property, are under pressure, or wouldn’t sell at all unless somebody got aggressive, I generally don’t build the analysis around that.

    Instead, I make a basic assumption.

    If you were what I’d call a sensible seller, meaning you are not under pressure to sell but you would sell at a reasonable market price, what would the property likely bring?

    That’s the framework.

    And all the comparable sales are there in the report. The relevant ones anyway. I try to show what sold, what didn’t, and explain why I came to the conclusion I did.

    Not a desperate seller.

    Not somebody demanding fantasy pricing either.

    Just somebody willing to make a reasonable deal if the numbers make sense.

    On a million-dollar transaction, that usually means you’re not going to blow the whole thing up over six hundred dollars on a survey when everything else is lined up correctly.

    Most legitimate transactions happen somewhere in that world.

    Does that mean somebody more aggressive might test the market higher?

    Does a more motivated seller sometimes take less for speed or certainty?

    That’s not really the point.

    The point is giving you a baseline grounded in what buyers have actually been willing to pay, instead of just whatever number happens to sound good that day.

    Then you decide whether you want to sell, wait, push harder on price, or ignore the whole thing for another five years.



    PPS- If you’re not ready for the Reality Check but like this kind of thinking, you can sign up below to get these in your inbox.

    Register to Receive Posts Via Email!

    By submitting, I understand I will receive marketing emails and blog posts from Mike Browning Realty and/or associated companies. Unsubscribe at any time.

  • You’re Better Off Knowing, Even If It Hurts At First

    You’re Better Off Knowing, Even If It Hurts At First

    Last week I put together an MBR Land Reality Check for a Collin County acreage owner.

    I went through the comparable sales, looked at the utility situation, and worked through it the same way I would if it were coming to market, whether it actually ends up happening or not.

    The projected value range came in meaningfully below what the county currently has it assessed at.

    That’s something I’m seeing more often lately.

    For a long time, if you saw a rural tract priced at or below tax value, it at least got your attention. It didn’t always mean it was a deal, but it was usually worth a closer look.

    That’s not as reliable as it used to be.

    In a number of cases now, especially with more rural acreage, tax values appear to have caught up to, or in some cases moved ahead of, where the market would actually transact.

    It’s likely a function of the way values moved over the last several years.

    At the same time, most of these properties carry an agricultural exemption. So while the assessed value may be high on paper, the owner isn’t being taxed on that number.

    Which means there’s very little incentive to challenge it.

    If anything, it tends to have the opposite effect. A higher assessed value feels like a positive signal, even if it doesn’t reflect what a buyer would actually pay.

    That can create a disconnect.

    And in some cases, it matters more than people realize.

    If an agricultural exemption is removed, rollback taxes are calculated based on the assessed value. If that number is higher than it should be, the exposure is higher as well.

    I’m not going to get into the mechanics of that here.

    And to be clear, I’m not an appraiser. The MBR Land Reality Check isn’t designed for use in a property tax protest. If that’s the objective, a tax consultant or appraiser is better equipped for it.

    If nothing else, it gives you context.

    You don’t have to sell. You don’t have to even consider selling.

    But things change.

    And it’s a lot easier to make a good decision when you already understand what you have than when you’re trying to figure it out under pressure.

    So the question isn’t whether you’re planning to sell.

    It’s whether it makes sense to know where things stand.



    PPS – If you’d rather just keep an eye on how this works, you can sign up below and get these posts in your inbox.

    Register to Receive Posts Via Email!

    By submitting, I understand I will receive marketing emails and blog posts from Mike Browning Realty and/or associated companies. Unsubscribe at any time.

  • The Best Time to Look Is When You Don’t Have To

    The Best Time to Look Is When You Don’t Have To

    You’ve probably heard it said that the best time to find a job is when you don’t need one.

    Most people agree with that when they hear it. It makes sense. You don’t wait until something goes wrong. You keep your eyes open, pay attention to what’s out there, and stay aware of opportunities.

    Not because you’re planning to leave tomorrow, but because things change. If you’re paying attention, more likely for the better.

    The same idea gets repeated in different ways. Your real job isn’t just what you get paid to do. It’s to keep an eye on what might be next.

    And most people don’t actually do it.

    Not because they disagree with it, but because it makes them uncomfortable. They don’t want to have conversations that might go somewhere. They don’t want to deal with interviews. They don’t want their current employer to find out. They don’t want something to start that they don’t feel in control of.

    So they leave it alone.

    Until one day something changes. The company gets sold, things slow down, priorities shift, or they’re just no longer needed.

    And now they’re starting from zero.

    The time they thought they had turns out to be gone.

    Real estate works the same way, especially with land.

    The day you might need or want to sell is probably somewhere out in the future, if it ever comes at all. So it’s easy to assume there’s no reason to think about it now.

    But things change.

    Markets move. Situations shift. Priorities evolve.

    And when that happens, it’s a lot easier to make a good decision if you already understand what you have and how it fits into the bigger picture.

    The problem is, most people don’t want to look.

    Not because they think it’s a bad idea, but because of what they expect will come with it.

    They’ve dealt with real estate people before. They assume that once they start the conversation, it turns into pressure. Like they should have sold yesterday. Like they’re getting pulled into something they didn’t intend to start.

    So they avoid it.

    That’s the part that doesn’t need to be true.

    You don’t have to sell. You don’t have to list. You don’t have to make a decision about anything.

    But you are allowed to take a look and understand what you have.

    And it’s a lot easier to do that when you don’t need the answer right away than when you needed it yesterday.



    PPS – If you’d rather just follow along for now, you can sign up below and get these in your inbox.

    Register to Receive Posts Via Email!

    By submitting, I understand I will receive marketing emails and blog posts from Mike Browning Realty and/or associated companies. Unsubscribe at any time.

  • You May “Know,” But Do You Know?

    You May “Know,” But Do You Know?

    Understanding something in theory is useful.

    But theory isn’t the same as knowing what to do.

    Understanding what’s happening in the market around your land is theoretical knowledge. Sales. Listings. Prices. Buyer activity. Development pressure. All of that is information.

    Knowing what it means, and what to do with it, is applied skill.

    And like most applied skills, it’s better to develop it before you actually need it.

    Or find a trusted advisor who will be on your side when that time comes.

    Because life changes quickly. What you expect the next six months to look like today might look very different tomorrow. Health changes. Jobs change. Kids move. Opportunities appear. Problems appear.

    We all know this. We just prefer not to think about it too much because it reminds us how little control we actually have.

    Most landowners aren’t planning to sell. That’s normal. In fact that’s the default.

    Sometimes people even call me after getting one of my letters just to tell me they would never sell their land. Thank you very much. Like I asked them to sell a kidney.

    And then six months later the property is on the market.

    Sometimes listed by me.

    You don’t have to decide anything today. You may never have to make that decision. But if the day ever comes, it helps to already understand the terrain.

    Is there any downside to learning?


    P.S.- For landowners who would like to get the most current info on things affecting their land and its value, I’ve created the MBR Land Reality Check.

    It’s a professional Broker Opinion of Value based on current listings, recent sales, and what buyers are actually doing in your area. And more.

    It’s free today (tho it may not always be). And never any pressure to list.


    P.P.S. If you don’t need the Reality Check today but enjoyed reading this, you can get these in your inbox whenever I publish them (usually daily).

  • The Opposite of a Car Dealer

    The Opposite of a Car Dealer

    A couple of years ago I bought my daughter a car. Used car prices were so inflated it actually made more sense to buy new. Not long after that, I bought my wife a car too.

    If you’ve done this recently, you already know what comes next.

    The advertised price pulls you in.
    You get interested.
    You drive over.

    And suddenly the price is $3,000 to $5,000 higher than you expected.

    Floor mats. Window tint. Paint protection. Nitrogen in the tires. Perfectly fine products, already installed, presented as non-negotiable. Sometimes you can get them removed or avoid the cost. Sometimes you can’t.

    I usually do fine in those situations. That is not the point.

    The aggravating part is not the add-ons.

    It’s the surprise.

    When I bought my wife’s car, I asked before I ever showed up:
    What add-ons are going on this vehicle?
    What do they cost?
    What is my out-the-door number?

    That is the number you need before you step foot on the lot.

    In real estate, I operate the opposite way.

    If you are selling through me, I prepare a Seller’s Estimated Net Proceeds sheet early in the process. It is an estimate. At that stage it cannot be exact. Some costs are negotiable. Some may shift depending on the structure of the deal.

    But on the first pass, I show everything as if it is being charged to you.

    Not because that is what I want to happen.

    Because I do not want you surprised.

    When an offer comes in, I prepare a new net sheet based on that specific offer as written, or based on how we are countering it. That version is not perfect either, but it is much closer to reality.

    You see the numbers before you sign anything.

    You know what you are walking away with.

    You stay in control.

    If you do not like the deal, you do not sign it. Even if someone offers exactly what you asked for, it is still your property. Circumstances change. You can change your mind.

    I might not love it. I will not be mad.

    What I will not do is lure you in with one number and quietly move the goalposts later.

    There are enough surprises in a transaction already.

    The pricing should not be one of them.


    P.S. You may not be ready to sell today, but does it hurt to know where you stand? Request a MBR Land Reality Check below.

    No cost. No obligation. Just clarity before decisions.


  • Most People Misunderstand the Business They’re In

    Most People Misunderstand the Business They’re In

    Yesterday I was talking about the Dallas Morning News, and how a lot of the people there don’t really know what business they’re in.

    And the people who did know what business they were in are either gone, or they know the business is dead anyway, so it doesn’t matter.

    Contrast that with the NFL.

    Their product isn’t really football. Football is the engine. It’s what pulls in the eyeballs. The real product is selling those eyeballs to network television for huge amounts of money in exchange for broadcasting the games.

    Add in corporate sponsorships, the ability to get cities to subsidize stadiums, and everything else layered on top.

    It’s a money printing machine.

    And you can be absolutely certain the people at the top know exactly what business they’re in. Unlike the newspaper people.

    They’ll talk like they’re in another business. They’ll say it’s all about winning. And it’s not that they don’t want to win.

    But it’s also not really about creating perfectly fair competition.

    If it were, teams wouldn’t play on different amounts of rest. Travel wouldn’t be wildly uneven. Schedules wouldn’t tilt the way they do.

    And the rules wouldn’t constantly change.

    But they do. All the time.

    Not to make the game more fair, but to increase viewer interest.

    That’s the business.

    Real estate isn’t that different.

    Most agents think they’re in the brokerage business. In reality, many are in the tell-the-seller-what-they-want-to-hear business, followed by the put-up-a-sign-and-hope business.

    That’s not how I operate.

    I’ll tell you what I actually think, not what I think will get me hired. Being aggressive on price can make sense, and I’m fine with that. But it still has to connect to reality.

    That’s why I think of this as the trust business.

    Things don’t always work out the way we want. Markets change. Buyers disappear. But you’ll never feel like you weren’t dealt with honestly.

    I offer a free, no-obligation analysis of non-residential property. You may not be ready to sell, and that’s fine.

    But can it really hurt to know where things actually stand?

    Almost everyone says they want the truth. Not everyone actually does.

    If you’re one of the ones who does, click below to get your free valuation report.